


That Talking Hat

by DestinyFreeReally



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-27 06:28:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13242426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DestinyFreeReally/pseuds/DestinyFreeReally
Summary: An imagined scene between Ginny and Harry on Ginny's first days in Hogwarts. I've been thinking about Slytherin Ginny, and I've been wondering if in-canon anyone thought about it, too. The Hat told Harry he might do well in Slytherin, but listened to Harry's requests. I sort of gave Ginny a similar situation, and a way she might talk to Harry about it.





	That Talking Hat

    “Harry.” Ginny surprised herself by calling him outloud, and she promised herself that she hadn’t been looking for him. She’d simply looked up from the hall floor and saw Harry Potter, nearly knocking into him as he was striding by.    
  
    “Hey, Ginny,” Harry smiled at Ron’s baby sister. Besides the red hair, Harry thought he could see similarities in the siblings’ faces. Ginny’s features were softer and more feminine than Ron’s, but Harry thought a lot of their lines were the same. So when Ginny’s mouth was twisted up just so, Harry wondered if it meant the same thing as when Ron’s did. “Is everything alright?”   
  
    He remembered his own first days, first weeks, at Hogwarts- finding himself for the first time in a place he actually wanted to call home. But Ginny had a home that wasn’t Hogwarts, Harry reminded himself; she had family that she might actually be missing.    
  
   Swallowing a deep breath, Ginny told herself it wasn’t a thing to be bothering Harry Potter with. She knew from Ron, all the attention  _ the boy who lived  _ got at Hogwarts, and Ginny didn’t want to pile on. But he was still standing there with her, smiling like he was actually listening to what she might say.    
  
    “It’s just… there’s this rumor, a lot of the First Years have been whispering that they heard from their older first-cousin’s-grandma’s-uncle,” Ginny bit her lip, and her eyes found the floor, again, when she heard her voice coming out in a near-whisper itself.    
  
    “About me?” Harry asked. He’d heard some whispers, too. About how Harry Potter,  _ the boy who lived, _ did it again- defeated Voldemort. Nearly every whisper about Professor Quirrell, Voldemort, the Sorcerer’s Stone- any of it, rang remarkable compared to the truth of the thing.    
  
    “It’s just…” Ginny clasped her hands, and sighed. “They  _ say _ that… when the Sorting Hat was first deciding about you, it originally wanted you for…  _ Slytherin.” _ She really did whisper, that time, leaning into him.    
  
   Well, it wasn’t a wildly-blown-out-of-proportion tale of his heroism, or a very-inaccurate retelling of the night his parents died, and Harry guessed that was for the better.    
  
   “ _ Who _ said that?” Harry asked, staring down Ginny’s eyes gone wide.    
  
   “Just some of the other kids, it’s silly, I know, I just…” Shrugging, Ginny felt her cheeks warm with embarrassment. “I was just wondering, because…” Taking a deep breath, Ginny waited for the last student to leave the hall empty for them, before she looked up at Harry again. “It said something to me, too. We… talked. About… Slytherin.” Like she was admitting a sin, she felt guilty, and regretted mentioning any of it to Harry.   
  
    “Oh,” he saw her fingers holding tight to each other, still clasped. “Well, we talked, too. About Slytherin. I asked to be….” Making an admission of his own, Harry thought he saw Ginny relax her grip, a little. “I asked not to be put in Slytherin House,” he admitted.    
  
    “Me too!” Ginny lit up a little, and smiled softly. Everything Ginny heard from her brothers about Slytherin, she’d practically begged the hat to put her anyway else, even if she begged silently. She was afraid to think about  _ why _ the Hat would think she’d do well in Slytherin- but felt better knowing that he’d said the same to Harry Potter.    
  
     “Where have you two been?” Ron charged down the hall, and Ginny stepped back from Harry. “About time to eat, no?”   
  
   “Yeah, Ron, we’re coming,” Harry walked to Ron, but smiled back at Ginny. 


End file.
